


Roman Didn't Fall in a Day

by patentpending



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Angst, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Needs a Hug, Gen, King Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Morally Ambiguous Character, The Split
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-02-22 23:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23968414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patentpending/pseuds/patentpending
Summary: After the events of Putting Others First, Roman pays a visit to his brother.
Relationships: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders
Comments: 87
Kudos: 493





	Roman Didn't Fall in a Day

**Author's Note:**

> tws: canon-typical Remus behavior, including corpses, blood, and animal skeletons. Extreme self-depreciation and what could be interpreted as suicidal ideation (not wanting to exist/feel anymore)

It was remarkably easy to find his brother, once he started looking.

It seemed wrong, somehow, that he had spent all these years trying so desperately to separate himself from his other half, to cover up any similarities with bluster and a smile, and let himself believe it was as simple as Patton had said, way back then.

_Roman, you’re good. You come with us._

_Remus, you’re bad. You go with them._

Up is up. The sky is blue. Roman is good, and the dark sides are bad – everything Patton said was so beautifully _simple._ It made sense.

He wanted, more than anything, for it to make sense. He wanted Patton to be right when he cast Roman as the hero, when he told him he was smart and kind and handsome and necessary and _loved._ It was all he had ever really wanted to be, and Patton offered it to him with a simple title – prince.

But it had never really felt right, had it?

Roman had never really felt right.

He’d always known, deep down, that there was something wrong with him. That he wasn’t as good, as kind, as selfless as Thomas needed him to be. And when he let that smarmy silver-tongued serpent sway him with pretty talk of what Roman wanted, what Roman dreamed of, that only proved it.

So Roman refuted him, as aggressively as he could, and sent Thomas to the wedding, to tap listlessly at his phone and dream of what could’ve been if his creativity wasn’t such a Lily-livered coward.

But now, apparently, up was down. The sky wasn’t blue, it was rolling sheets of gray and pitch-black ink and streaks of orange, tumbling and rolling over and changing itself at every second. Deceit- Janus was good, and what the hell did that mean for Roman?

Patton had been wrong about Janus. God, what else had he been wrong about? Remus being bad? 

Roman being good? Being the hero? Being needed? Being loved?

After all, if the one they all called evil is good, what does that mean for the one they all called good?

But Roman knew. After all, if he was as good as Patton always pretended he was, he wouldn’t have thrown a hood over the whiteness of his suit, wouldn’t have slipped through the cracking old door at the edge of the mind palace, wouldn’t have climbed down the rickety stairs to the subconscious.

Wouldn’t push open the door to his brother’s room. 

But, of course, he did. 

It shouldn’t have been so easy to find him. Shouldn’t have felt as natural as breathing. Shouldn’t have .

But, of course, it did.

“Ro-bro!” That shrill voice Roman had spent so long trying to forget rang out. Remus was standing in the middle of a pile of zombies, their skulls bashed in, his morning star swung casually over his shoulder. How many times had Roman stood like that, head held high over his vanquished enemies, the body of some nameless villain cooling on the ground in the Imagination?

It was so much easier when he could pretend a figment was the villain.

“Perfect timing! I’m just finishing up here.” Remus aimed a kick at the pile, and they flashed through the stages of decomposition in seconds – flesh shriveling and blackening before rotting away and leaving white, gleaming bone behind.

“So!” Remus chirped, picking his way through the bones towards his brother. “To what does this humble duke owe the pleasure of a visit from prince poopy-head himself?”

“I’m not a prince, Remus,” Roman said, roughly. He lowered his hood, and his eyes were red-rimmed, his skin blotchy, but his mouth pressed into a firm line. “I don’t think I ever was.”

Remus let out a low whistle, stopping before him. “Well, damn. Who tore your balls off, huh? You look like your tentacle monster boyfriend just said he actually prefers receiving.”

“You,” Roman said, then groaned. “Patton, Dece- Janus, I don’t know.”

“Ooh, good ol’ ‘anus finally told you his name, huh?” Remus’s sickly-green eyes gleamed. “But, gasp, that can’t be right, now can it?” He mockingly threw a hand over his mouth. “Only good guys get names! What on _earth_ would we do if villains were humanized, huh?”

“Yeah.” A bitter, weary smile warped Roman’s lips. “Exactly.”

For once, Remus had nothing to say.

Roman pushed past him, going deeper into Remus’s room, taking in the stacks of bones, the maps plastered over the walls, the stench of blood and rot. He should’ve felt disgusted, but all he felt was exhausted.

“I don’t have anything like this,” he said, softly, touching a rat skeleton, skittering back and forth across Remus’s desk. “I don’t think I _could_ make anything like this, even if I tried.”

He turned to his brother, intent. “We’re both wrong, you know that, right? I don’t know how much, but we’re… we’re not what he needs. Neither of us.”

Remus was quiet, jaw working and ragged fingernails picking at his skin. “What are you saying, Roman?”

“I’m so tired of being like this, feeling like this,” Roman rasped, sitting on Remus’s bed and letting his head fall into his hands. “I’m not… I’m not enough, Remus. Neither of us are.”

Remus sat next to him, morbid curiosity glowing in his eyes. “And you think _he_ is? Was? Will be?”

“I don’t know,” Roman admitted. “I have no fucking clue. But he has to be better, doesn’t he? Anything has to be better than m–” He swallowed hard, fisting his hands in the white fabric of his pants and trying to remember when they were gray.

“Neither of us are what Thomas needs,” he said, carefully, “but what if he is? What if pure, unbounded creativity is what Thomas needs? What if we’re being selfish by keeping him away from Thomas?”

Remus cackled, a shrieking, shrill sound. “Oh, Ro-bro,” he cooed, sharp teeth bared. “You really expect me to believe you care about being selfish all of the sudden?”

“Tell me you don’t,” Roman snapped. “Tell me you don’t care when Thomas shoves you away. What if he didn’t anymore?”

Remus snarled. “Maybe I’m fine the way I am, huh? You're not the hero, Roman. You don’t get to congratulate yourself for ‘saving me’.” He flashed a cruel smile. “What do you even know about me, Brother?”

“Nothing,” Roman admitted. “All I know is that I haven’t felt right since…” He laughed, suddenly, a sharp and bitter sound. “I haven’t felt right.”

He lifted his head and _looked_ at his brother, truly looked at him, for perhaps the first time ever. The swoop of his bangs. The broadness of his shoulders. The lines under his eyes. The barely-there freckles running across his nose. The scar cutting through his eyebrow.

His perfect mirror, sitting just a foot away.

“Something tells me you haven’t either.”

Remus’s face darkened. 

“I don’t need you,” he hissed. “I haven’t for twenty years, and I sure as hell don’t need you now. You… you’re the one who trusted _Morality_ when he split us up. You’re the one who left me behind. You don’t just get to come in here and-“ He cut himself off, breathing ragged and hands fisted. “You don’t get to.”

“Patton was wrong,” Roman said, softly. “About a lot of things, apparently. About us, probably.” Impulsively, he reached out and took both of his brothers hands in his own. They were warm, dry. “About _him.”_

Remus was shaking, or perhaps it was Roman, or both of them, as they touched for the first time and twenty years and felt the weight of something unspeakable hang over them.

“What the hell do you want, Roman?” Remus rasped. “Because if you’re here to heal old wounds, they’re too festered and fucked up to even bother with.”

Roman shook his head, letting out a bitter bark of laughter. “All I want is to stop feeling like this. I was never a prince, not really. All I’ve ever been was a fucked-up half of a broken king.”

First just one tear slipped down Remus’s cheek. Then another. Then he was bawling, hiccuping, sobbing as he gripped Roman’s hands like a lifeline. 

“Do you even know,” he gasped out, “what it’s been like? How lonely I’ve been?”

Roman scooted closer and wrapped his arms around his other half, letting him bury his face in Roman’s shoulder.

“Shh, sh, it’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s okay, Remus.”

And, as he felt himself warm wherever he touched Remus, as he felt his edges begin to blur and soften, Roman smiled, sharp, as he murmured just what his brother wanted to hear. “Neither of us are going to be lonely ever again.”

King Romulus opened his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so i went absolutely FERAL after this episode dropped and banged this out at 4am last night. 
> 
> Anyway, check out why I think Roman is gonna go rogue and the king may come back on my [tumblr](https://impatentpending.tumblr.com/), reblog this [here](https://impatentpending.tumblr.com/post/617027880445231104/rome-didnt-fall-in-a-day), and drop a comment below!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and ROAST ME IF YOU SEE A TYPO COWARDS


End file.
